


Who's Going To Love You Now?

by vials



Category: A Perfect Spy - John le Carré
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, at least two of these characters weren't meant to show up but did, but that's kind of a given when it comes to this book, it's also really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 01:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8729347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: The problem with a graveside is that anybody can show up.





	

Mary had been to her fair share of funerals, and each one weighed heavier on her than the last until she was sure that she would never be able to attend another one unless it was her own. Each time, she thought she couldn’t possibly be burying a worse person; time and time again, she had been proven wrong. By the time she buried her husband, she didn’t dare think such a thing.

There was nothing overly special about this particular funeral, even though she had been stupid enough to assume that something would be different merely because it was Magnus she was burying and not an elderly relative or someone else she expected death to touch. The air was crisp and cold but not raining even though she thought it should be; the attendance was expectedly low. She couldn’t say that she had expected anything less. Traitors were so fashionable these days, when they were splashed all over the front page of the news. Mary had found that they were decidedly less fashionable when it happened to be someone you knew, and apparently it was also acceptable to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The thought made Tom cross her mind again and her stomach twisted itself into knots. What would become of him when he went back to school, the child of a traitor? Could she bring herself to send him back? She had buried so many of the boys in her life that she didn’t think she could stand to see him out of her sight. She wanted to cry, but she had told herself she wouldn’t. 

Mary sighed, her breath clouding in front of her. She had watched them fill the grave in, despite the cold creeping through her coat and settling into her skin. She could easily stay there until the headstone arrived, if she wanted to, if it was a matter of duty, but there were other things to do and so much to attend to, and Tom was shifting uncomfortably next to her, his hand in hers so impossibly small. 

“Come on,” she said, her voice quiet. “We’ll get you back to the car.”

“Where are we going?” he asked. “Are we going home now?”

“We will be. Everyone will come back for a while, and I imagine there’ll be something to eat. Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” he said, and Mary gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Do try and eat something,” she told him. “Whatever you like. I don’t care, so long as you eat.”

She could have cried then, too, looking at him, and she forced herself to focus on the cemetery gates instead. She couldn’t stand to see how brave he was being, how he forced his face into something that he hoped was neutrality. She could feel how he was hurting, and she wanted more than anything to gather him into her arms and tell him that it was alright to cry, that it was alright to be sad. The only thing that prevented her from doing so was the knowledge that this was simply how he was coping – some grand old idea about being the man of the house now, or whatever Jack had put into his head. She would let him have that, if it got him through the next few weeks, but she sure as hell would be having words with Jack about just what sort of motivational speech was appropriate for a boy of Tom’s age.

Jack himself was waiting by the car, looking particularly grim. He managed a relatively upbeat greeting for Tom’s sake, though Mary didn’t miss the look they exchanged; one that briefly, very briefly, diluted the anger she had been feeling only seconds before. He looked just as lost as she felt. 

“Want to ride up front?” Jack asked, breaking the look to turn to Tom, who looked at her with pleading eyes.

“Can I, mum?”

Mary sighed. “Only if you put on the seatbelt.”

“But –”

“If you don’t want to wear one, you can sit in the back,” she told him firmly. “Up front, belt on. That’s the deal.”

“Fiiine,” Tom said, rolling his eyes in a way that was so _normal_ that Mary could almost forget the circumstances. Jack smiled, amused, as Tom clambered into the front; Mary almost backed out and told him to get into the back that instant, where she could keep a good grip on him should something go wrong on the drive home, but she knew that would be a slippery slope that Tom would probably find inescapable. She stayed silent.

“You don’t mind cramming in the back?” Jack asked her, and Mary shook her head.

“Let him get one fun thing out of this hellish day,” she said. “I have no idea how we’re going to get through the rest of the day. He’s trying so hard; it might get to be too much once he starts getting tired.”

“I’ll make sure everyone’s gone by that point,” Jack said. “If you want, that is.”

“I might take you up on that,” Mary told him, pulling open the car door. As she did, Tom twisted around in his seat, looking at her, worried.

“I think I dropped one of my gloves,” he said, holding up just the one. “Can I run back and find it?”

“Well, you’re in the car now,” Mary said. “It’ll be warm.”

“Dad gave me these,” Tom said, and his voice sounded so suddenly fragile that Mary hated herself for forgetting. 

“He did, didn’t he?” Mary asked, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t think.”

“It’s alright,” he said, giving her a brave smile that only wobbled slightly. “Can I?”

“I’ll get it,” Mary told him. “You stay here. I’ll only be a minute.”

She thought there would be some protest, but after something she couldn’t quite catch from Jack, Tom seemed to reluctantly agree to let her go on her own. She was glad for it, whatever it had been – she needed some time, even if it was just a few minutes. For a funeral so empty she felt stretched far too thin; the thought of returning home to more people was exhausting. She walked as slowly as she could get away with, weaving through the gravel-lined pathways, her eyes lingering on the headstones she passed. She felt the path curve enough that she was hidden from the car, and finally she let her shoulders slump, her step falter as she paused and took a slow, deep breath. Her eyes stung and she closed them tight, only daring to open them when she was sure she wouldn’t cry. 

“Magnus, you bastard,” she whispered, her voice cracking, and forced herself to walk again.

The grave was filled, the soil patted down, and for a moment Mary considered leaving it like that, with nothing but a small red marker noting the spot. It wasn’t as though she wanted Magnus to vanish forever – of course she didn’t, and besides, that would be impossible even if she did want it – but she wondered how safe the grave would be as a place to remember him; if it would become a place for others to vent their anger. Perhaps not here, so far away from those who might hate him, but the thought still troubled her. 

She remembered why she was there and looked quickly around for the missing glove, trying to avoid stepping closer to the grave until it became impossible to avoid. She busied herself with looking, stubbornly ignoring the pull she could feel; she wanted to stare at it, wanted to drop to her knees in front of it and dig her fingers into the dirt and demand answers from Magnus that she knew she would never get, but instead she swallowed it all back and continued looking though she was certain she wouldn’t be able to see the glove even if it was right in front of her. 

There was something wrong with the scene and her head ached to think of it. She stopped, stood completely still, focused on breathing. Her head was spinning and for one horrible moment she thought she might faint. The cemetery was quiet and nothing was different aside from the absence of the men who had been silently filling the grave; it was all exactly the same aside from the small grave marker and the silence and then Mary looked again and saw that it wasn’t a marker at all but a bunch of poppies tied together at the stems. 

The scene slowed and stood still and she could breathe again. She felt far too hot, her head still too light, but she knew now that she wasn’t imagining them. They were as real as everything else, as unbelievable as it all was, and it was that thought that finally grounded her. Nothing about this situation was right – why should she be afraid of some flowers?

“They’re all looking for you,” she said, not too loudly but certainly clearly. “It was shockingly idiotic, coming here.”

Only silence answered her, but Mary knew he was still there. She could feel him just as surely as if she’d laid eyes on him, and she wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before now. 

“I could go back,” she said, suddenly, angrily. “I could go back right now and tell them. I’m sure Jack would love to have a word with you. I’m sure they all would. I could tell them.”

“But you won’t.”

She had expected him to say that, and she knew he would be right. She hadn’t expected to hear his voice so close to her, though; turning around, she found him only a few feet behind her, exactly as she remembered him but minus the cigar. Instead he held in his hand a small glove, which he offered to her as she turned. She looked at him for a moment and then snatched it from him, shoving it deep into her pocket and keeping her fingers wrapped around it as though he might change his mind and try and take that from her, too, along with all the other tiny pieces of Magnus he had managed to steal over the years.

“But I _could_ ,” she told him, and he smiled. 

“By all means, if you feel you should, go ahead. I doubt I would be able to outrun them.”

She looked at him, wanting to shout at him, but instead she found herself laughing. A part of her hated him for it – he had done this before, made her laugh when by all means she should have been weeping – but a larger part of her found it better to be laughing than crying right now. She couldn’t afford to start crying. She feared she would never stop. If she cried here it would be all she thought about when she cried afterwards; that she had been crying at her own husband’s grave, and how on earth would she stop crying with those thoughts going around her head?

No, she would laugh, and then she could at least remember that she had laughed at his graveside; that she had shared a joke with his oldest friend, with someone else who had loved him just as much as she had.

 _Maybe more_ , she found herself thinking, but she didn’t have the energy to be envious. 

“I don’t suppose we’ll see one another again,” she said. “Though I did think that the first time.”

“It’s doubtful. What did you describe this as, again? ‘Shockingly idiotic’, I believe.”

“Well, it is.”

“Of course it is. I am sure you understand.”

“You had to say goodbye,” Mary said, and he nodded, his smile faltering slightly.

“I will miss him terribly,” he said, and the look on his face was a stark contrast to how steady his words were.

“So will I,” Mary admitted. “He left one hell of a mess.”

“But you love him still, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Mary said firmly. “Of course I love him.”

“Then that is all that matters.”

They looked at one another again, for long enough that Mary was afraid she would start to cry after all, and then she must have shaken herself out of it because she realised suddenly that her hand was still gripping the glove in her pocket, and that Tom and Jack would be expecting her back at the car and she needed to leave now if she didn’t want things to become even more complicated. 

“I need to go,” she said, and suddenly she was anxious, wondering if she had been away for too long, if somebody might have grown suspicious or if something had happened to Tom. She felt eyes on her as she stepped past, but he didn’t say anything to her – she wondered if he would leave, too, or if he would stay there for as long as he dared. She wondered if he would come back. 

She wanted to ask, briefly thought about asking that and a million other questions, but when she stepped onto the gravel path and glanced back, he was already gone.


End file.
